PRB: General Protection Fault Occurs On VSS Launch (159775)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, 16-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, 32-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, 16-bit, for Windows 4.0a
  • Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, 32-bit, for Windows 4.0a
  • Microsoft Visual SourceSafe for Windows 6.0
This article was previously published under Q159775

SYMPTOMS

Under certain conditions, you may receive a General Protection Fault when attempting to open Visual SourceSafe. When running on Windows NT, this message may appear as:
The exception unknown software exception (0xc00000fd) occurred in the application at location <address>.

Click OK to terminate the application.
Click on CANCEL to debug the application.
where <address> is any hexadecimal memory address.

In addition to the above message, the following error has been reported under Windows NT:
An application error has occurred and an application error log is being generated. SSADMIN.EXE (SSEXP.EXE) Exception: Stack overflow 0xc00000fd Address: <address>
where <address> is any hexadecimal memory address.

When running on Windows 95, this message may appear as:
This program has performed and illegal operation and will be shut down.

If the problem persists, contact the program vendor.
Another error message may appear when you log on the Visual SourceSafe explorer:
Too many file handles open.

CAUSE

One possible cause of this error is if the Srcsafe.ini file's #include statements are cyclical in nature.

In a typical client server SourceSafe installation, both the client and the server will have an Srcsafe.ini file. The client's Srcsafe.ini file usually contains a single #INCLUDE entry that points to the server's Srcsafe.ini file. An example would be: 
   #INCLUDE \\Server\Share\VSS\Srcsafe.ini
If a user or administrator inadvertently modifies or adds a #INCLUDE statement to one or more Srcsafe.ini files that results in a cyclic relationship, the above errors will occur.

RESOLUTION

Removing the cyclic #INCLUDE statements and replacing them with correctly formatted #INCLUDE statements will resolve this problem.

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

  1. Install a Server installation of Visual SourceSafe.
  2. Open the SRCSAFE.INI file and add the following line to the beginning of the file: 
          #INCLUDE <Path to Srcsafe.ini>\Srcsafe.ini
    where <Path to Srcsafe.ini> is the path to the currently-opened Srcsafe.ini file. Save and close the Srcsafe.ini file.
  3. Attempt to run the Visual SourceSafe Explorer. Note that, depending on your current operating system, one of the above error messages will occur.
Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:2/11/2005
Keywords:kberrmsg kbprb KB159775
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